Esperanza continues to give Latinos hope
Ninety students received scholarships this year

By Ingrid Marie Rivera, La Prensa Correspondent

For Rosa Orta Cruz going to college and studying abroad seemed like a far-fetched dream. But she said her dreams came true when the non-profit group Esperanza Inc. and other sponsors provided her with scholarships. And Esperanza continues to aid other students.
 

Rosa Orta Cruz

This year, Esperanza awarded 90 students with scholarships of either $500 or $1,000 at their annual scholarship luncheon Fiesta of Hope, June 24, 2011.

Over 500 people gathered to congratulate the students at Windows on the River in the Flats, Cleveland.

This year’s keynote speaker was Dr. Ronald Berkman, President of Cleveland State University.

Esperanza has been connecting students with scholarships since 1983, and each year the list of students awarded keeps growing, up from 61 recipients last year.

Victor Ruiz, Esperanza executive director, said the luncheon had a great turnout. But the statistics he had to deliver were not cheerful. Ruiz said only 33 percent of Latinos in the Cleveland area schools graduate high school, according to the Ohio Dept. of Education Local Report Card for the Cleveland area Schools. “Hispanics are the lowest of any other group in Cleveland,” he said. The average graduation rate for all students in the same school district was 54.3 percent, in the 2009-2010 school year.

“The community needs to rally together to address the situation,” Ruiz said “It’s not an easy solution, but it’s a problem that impacts us all.”

He said several factors are responsible for such a low graduation rate.

“Many of them are not passing the Ohio Graduation Test; or there are language issues; problems when they change schools from Puerto Rico to Cleveland; parents that don’t understand the school system and are not well engaged; and the district not providing a valuable education,” Ruiz said.

Ruiz said it is Esperanza’s mission to change that.

Esperanza not only strives to help Latinos financially with their plans for college, but also allows them to be “connected to an organization that can help them in college,” Ruiz said.

With Esperanza, students can connect with mentors, find internship and work opportunities, connect to other scholarship organizations, receive résumé and other training, and participate in several of its after-school and summer programs including tutoring and dance groups.

Ruiz said in the near future, Esperanza hopes to continue to provide students help on academic standardized tests; create a family institute where they can further teach parents how to interact with school districts; and plan to hire more paid staff and volunteers for mentoring and other roles.

To receive scholarships, students must be 50 percent Latino/a, live in Cuyahoga or Lorain County, have at least a 2.75 GPA, demonstrate financial need, and participate in an interview.

Ruiz said not all scholarship recipients take advantage of Esperanza’s resources, but they are available to them for as long as needed.

Rosa Orta Cruz

One student that is taking advantage of Esperanza’s help is Rosa Orta Cruz. She is working on her Bachelor’s degree in both Education and Spanish from Cleveland State University, and plans to teach English as a Second Language. She graduates May 14, 2012. This year she was awarded a $1,000 scholarship at the Fiesta of Hope.

But Orta Cruz, 22, has been reaching out to Esperanza for scholarships throughout her entire college career. During her five years in college, she applied for over 28 scholarships and received all of them, totaling roughly $42,000 in scholarship funding from both Esperanza and several other organizations. She has never paid for tuition out of her own pocket, she said.

Her motto: “Believe in yourself, and never take no for an answer,” she said.

“I had obstacles there, but I said, ‘no, they are not going to be an obstacle. I’m going to make it,’” she said.

Orta Cruz, with roots in Juana Díaz and Ponce, Puerto Rico, graduated from Cleveland’s Lincoln West High School in June 2007 and received a $1,500 scholarship ($500 from Esperanza and $1,000 from a sponsor) for having a 4.0 GPA, (exactly 4.3 GPA). And she received a full-ride scholarship to Miami University in Florida that year.

But she was forced to give up on her full-ride scholarship to Miami, after learning that her father was sick in Puerto Rico.

Orta Cruz later decided to attend Sacred Heart University in Santurce, Puerto Rico.

“I was sent to Puerto Rico and Esperanza still helped me,” she said “They were really nice to me.”

Esperanza provided her a list of scholarships and colleges.

A year later, she would return to Ohio and receive a full-ride scholarship to Cleveland State University. She received the Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship for study abroad that awarded her $4,000.

“I was in tears,” Orta Cruz said when she learned she won.

Students, “They think it’s difficult. They think ‘they won’t give it to me,’ but just be true to yourself,” she said.

Thanks to the scholarships Esperanza helped her to apply to and win, eight of those scholarships paid the way for her to study Spanish in Spain and even travel to France, Portugal, Scotland, Morocco, and London for six months in 2010.

Esperanza mentors: “They teach you there is always an open door; sometimes you will have challenges but they are there to help,” Orta Cruz said.

Thanks to Esperanza’s summer program, Orta Cruz learned she wanted to become a teacher.

In the summer of 2007 and 2008, Orta Cruz volunteered as an assistant teacher at Hope Academy where she helped teach English, writing, Math, Science, recreational dancing and even Spanish to several students from preschool to 8^th grade.

“Most of the students were Hispanic and didn’t know Spanish, and this cannot happen,” she said.

During college she worked as a Spanish tutor, and after graduation plans to teach in Cleveland.

Orta Cruz loves to teach but she also loves to dance. She has been dancing with the Cleveland Cavaliers Scream team since her senior year in high school. She also teaches children and teens how to Hip Hop and Latin Ballroom dance with her own dance company called Exprésate, and plans to have her own dance studio in the future.

She advises students to find where their passion is and major in that field, so the job will not feel like a job.

Orta Cruz is the first to attend college from her family of 10 siblings and a single mother.

“I took the challenges and I made my dream come true,” Orta Cruz said. “Stop giving excuses. Never give up. Keep trying. You’ll never get to be someone if you don’t believe in yourself. Once you get there, remember to give back,” she said.

See Esperanza online: http://esperanzainc.org/index2.htm

The 2011 Esperanza Scholarship Recipients include:

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